This week’s second release by Ballast is from our own Uncle Frans, a.k.a. Modelbau. When he heard the 30th-anniversary release by Vertonen (reviewed in VW 1353), he included the words ‘This release kept me busy for a good five hours, confirming that I enjoy his music a lot,’ he might have already thought about doing something in return. The joy of listening to the music Blake gave Frans was returned by a Mobelbau project where Frans created pieces based on, or better yet, made use of, that actual 30th-anniversary release. So, in the end, the time spent with that release was way more than the initial 5 hours Frans wrote about.
Modelbau probably started analyzing the works a bit further, especially the locked grooves, giving them a treatment the way only Modelbau could. As we are used to from Modelbau, the result can be anything, but it’s always dictated by the setup of that moment, Which changes every so many months or years. So we find on “Groef” a collection of 4 tracks which I would label experimental drones with noisy characteristics. As always – and it’s no secret anymore, I started to really appreciate his output over the years – it’s of a high quality in its lo-fi approach. And even though the initial thoughts of Modelbau were to create basics for Vertonen to create a collaborative release, when Blake got the tracks, he must have been as mesmerized as I am while playing them, too. The richness of the compositions is of a level that doesn’t need any additional sounds. That would probably be ruining the whole atmosphere they generate at this point.
The four tracks have a playing time of 50 minutes and weren’t given a title. Lengthwise, they are between 7 and 16 minutes, and as said, there is a certain minimalism in them, probably because Frans’s original thoughts were they would be ‘finished’ by someone else. But this minimalism is what drone is about. It’s the whole philosophy of Less is More, or how the famous Dutch writer Bomans stated, ‘Schrijven is Schrappen’ (To write is to cross out) or maybe even ‘it’s not what you have, it’s what you do with it’. And with a couple of locked grooves on a Lathe, you can already do miracles. Which Modelbau proves on “Groef”. QED
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